


Apocalypse Not

by orphan_account



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist, Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood & Manga, Pacific Rim (2013)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Post-Canon, Crossover, Edward Elric get in the fucking robot, Eventual War, Fix Fic, Gen, Ling Yao drifting with kaiju, Multi, Politics, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Winry Rockbell engineering giant mechas
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-01-10
Updated: 2014-01-30
Packaged: 2018-01-08 04:39:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 12,818
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1128460
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Well, they cancelled the apocalypse. Now all that's left is to pick up the pieces.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prelude - Apocalypse Not

**Author's Note:**

> So this is going to need quite a bit of explaining/backstory. Essentially, this is a post-canon fix fic for Pacific Rim with FMA characters. One of my friends is writing the Pacific Rim/FMA crossover during the Pacific Rim canon proper, so I decided to pull ahead and write the post-canon-verse. While you don't have to have watched the film to understand what's going on, it should be helpful to have at least something of a grasp on the situation.
> 
> Relevant details will be explained in-prose in the text as they come up, so don't worry about being confused just yet. To clarify, however, Winry Rockbell is the leading engineer on the jägers and is fighting to have her designs patented as opposed to being released publicly (not out of selfishness so much as out of fear that other countries would seek to copy the designs for use in war); her realisation that she might be ushering in a new era of global war and carnage is prompting her drinking. Edward Elric has lost two of his limbs in his time as a jäger pilot/ranger. Lan Fan lost her arm. Injuries to the spine and nervous system shock have left Alphonse without fine motor control. May Chang has been deafened by an explosion. Ling Yao drifted with a kaiju in order to learn more of their origins, but the drift left him with an animalistic streak he can't quite control, a violent, avaricious streak he struggles to overcome.
> 
> Mrs Bradley has been helming the Jäger Project since her husband's death, because Mrs Bradley deserves a level in badass. The other characters of FMA will be in the AU as well, but some of them may be deceased.
> 
> This fic is going to deal with the implications/logical consequences of giant indestructible fighting machines being dropped into a world fraught with existing tension that was only set aside to defeat the greater threat. And since the Jäger Pilot is liable to be dismantled at any moment, training new pilots will be difficult if not impossible. In other words, the surviving pilots are going to become a hot button indeed in the inevitable war. The countries and alliances of the world are desperate to claim these weapons of mass destruction while supplies last, pilots' psychology be damned.
> 
> Trigger warnings will be placed appropriately on each chapter. Although the characters face a variety of issues ranging from physical disabilities to depression, they are still their FMA selves. Because this particular chapter takes place shortly after the final battle, in which several of their fellow rangers died/sacrificed themselves for the world, the cast may appear to be off-balance, but you can forgive them their shock. This was a bit more traumatic than the Promised Day, after all. Think about the Elrics immediately following the human transmutation and you'll understand what I mean. The fic is about them finding their legs to stand on again, if they can survive the inevitable chaos.
> 
> Expect LBGTQIA+ characters and relationships (please note that this fic does not focus extensively on romance in general).
> 
> TL;DR: A Pacific Rim/Fullmetal Alchemist crossover, heavily influenced by Neon Genesis Evangelion and Ender's Game (without the problematic elements thereof).
> 
> Anyway, welcome to the AU, strap yourselves in, and feel free to shoot me any questions as you see fit.

They wait in a grey-tinted lounge with sofas far too soft to exist. One of the plastic bananas in the fruit bowl has a bite missing; from the edge oozes tiny white pellets of stuffing. On the television flicker reels of grainy footage of the rescue at sea. Bright technicolour projections of the nuclear explosion. Classy shots of streamlined, sparkling jägers sloshing through water parting like air or knocking imaginary targets from the air with well-timed computer generated punches. Interviews here and there of leading engineers, although _the_ leading engineer is presently nursing a cold beer in the grey-tinted purgatory. The rangers’ old photographs: clean, whole, smiling. A wide shot of the United Nations representatives perching forward in their seats, glassy gazes riveted on the screen, gasping, and then abruptly standing, cheering, embracing, opening kegs and bottles while the heroic music quivers on a crescendo, swelling to a peak. A scarlet banner emblazons across the screen:

 _THE APOCALYPSE IS CANCELLED_

A jarring chord. Horns. Cymbal crash. Edward winces visibly, his remaining hand rising involuntarily to cover his ears, and someone mutes the screen. Dead silence. Heavy. Thick. Quicksand, filling thick in their throats, burning their lungs, drowning them. No, not quite: Kilolitres, gigalitres of ocean water pouring down upon their shoulders with weight enough to bow their spines and snap their brittle bones. As if humans could beat back the gods and come out unscathed.

“That’s funny,” someone whispers. May. Her eyes gleam shiny-wet. “It looks like the U.N. guys are really the heroes here. Look at how _worried_ they were. Waiting like that.” Light on her cheek. She wipes her sleeve over her face. “I can’t _imagine_ the pain.”

The room breaks into shuddering, wheezing laughter. Alphonse slides from the slippery couch and lands with a muffled thump on the floor. Tears shimmer. “At least that didn’t hurt at all!” he calls out cheerfully. His limbs spasm. One hits the coffee table. The bruise blooms bluish black. His brother and WInry drag him back up. The girl’s hand shivers on the neck of the can, and Lan Fan leaps across the coffee table to catch it in her palm just before it crashes to the floor to spill its content like blood. Her momentum tips the table over. Plastic fruit flees beneath the furniture, trailing breadcrumbs. Edward lifts both thighs, and his right foot connects audibly. The table cracks in half. Splinters dig into the walls and floor. Holding the can aloft, she bites one pin of wood sunk into her wrist and rips it clean with her teeth.

She slinks back to the sofa. Touches Ling’s trembling hand gently, softly, and he exhales. “So, the apocalypse is cancelled. Now what?”

May swallows. “I’m eighteen.” She smiles faintly. “I guess I’d better start applying to college.”

More laughter. Howls. A pack of dying wolves frothing at the muzzles and tearing at air.

The door opens at last. Ling lunges in a flurry of teeth and nails. Lan Fan snags his collar and jerks him back. Struggling, he claws. Laps at the blood. She slaps him, and he stills. His pupils contract. “Sh-shit, Lan Fan—”

Mrs Bradley taps a finger against her clipboard. Over the past few _months_ since the completion and subsequent destruction of the coastal wall, the woman’s hair has faded from a russet brown to a cinnamon-tinged grey. “Mr Yao, are you all right?” Behind her usual cheerful lilt, her words betray the exhaustion evident in the perpetual wrinkles spiderwebbing her brow and the bags beneath her drooping lids, shaded a delicate violet. “Ms Chang, how are the implants?”

Slowly May tilts her head from side to side. Xiao-Mei purrs in her lap, but she pays the animal little heed. “I can hear enough to survive. Thank you.” Her breaths sound laboured. “And please send me the doctors’ names. I want to thank them, too.” Beaming encouragingly, Alphonse tries to reach across the destruction to stroke her knee but succeeds only in a shaking fist.

“Good. Please rest easy, Mr Alphonse Elric. Ms Chang, remember to remove them at night. Dr Knox informed me you have a good chance of regaining at least some of your loss, as well.” Formal address. The rangers swap narrowed glances and dip their heads slightly at the signal. “Mr Edward Elric, your prosthetics should be fit in a matter of days if not hours.” The corners of her eyes crinkle. “Within the week.” She consults the clipboard. Checks off a few notes with a swipe of her fingers. “Mr Alphonse Elric, all reports indicate you should gradually regain most or all motor control. Your treatment, as mentioned previously, is fully covered by the Jäger Fund.”

“Shame about the budget cuts,” Edward mumbles. Winry punches his gut, then leans heavily on his side, cheeks against his shoulder.

Mrs Bradley’s smile nearly falters for an instant. The corners of her mouth twitch. Then she waves the clipboard. “More good news. Ms Rockbell, the issues regarding the engineering patents should be handled by the end of the month. The Project thanks you again for stepping in; without your help, we would all be kaiju blue.” May giggles. Winry fishes another can from the cooler by the couch and inclines her head, mouthing a thank-you. Or perhaps a German curse. “The wealth will make you a billionaire, Ms Rockbell. I wish to congratulate you.” Mrs Bradley extends a hand. Winry doesn’t move except to open the beer. “Mr Yao, the Chinese government and the Asiatic Alliance at large are offering you positions of power, multitudes of awards, and a great deal of wealth. The Project has accepted the latter two for you in conjunction with our Chinese branches. Still, I highly encourage you to examine the aforementioned opportunities on your own terms.” Ling’s fingers curl into the warm spaces between Lan Fan’s as if he could banish the alien cold in his mind in her heat. “Ms Fū, as I mentioned to the older Mr Elric, your prosthetic should be fit within the week.”

“Thank you,” says Lan Fan. Her phantom fingers brush lightly over Ling’s knuckles. “At least they care for the toys they broke.”

Winry snickers. A trail of snot bubbles out of a nostril. She sniffs. “Except the jägers. _My_ jägers. Taken down because of the _danger_. Because the second humans aren’t ganging up on something big, they just go right back to tearing out each other’s fucking throats.”

Edward frowns. “Win, weren’t you the one who said that the ‘bots didn’t matter, that it was all about the peo—”

“I’m pissed at the wars already roiling over. At least give us a coupl’a days of break, right?” She throws herself into the cushions. Tips her head back. Drains the can and crunches it between her hands. Hooking her heel on the raised ridge surrounding the cooler, May tugs the alcohol away.

“Please, Ms Rockbell.” The woman’s expression cracks. Her lipstick bleeds into the skin around her curved lips. “The world is at peace.” For now. “Now, as all of you opted from the award ceremony—and I doubt that any of you are in a state to receive them at the moment—the Project is keeping your awards and accolades stored safely until you may retrieve them at your leisure. All treatments are covered, and your salary should see you live comfortably for the rest of your lives.” Edward claps, once, and Alphonse glares at him. The older Elric applauds again with the barest hint of sincerity. “Are there any nagging questions?”

Ling lifts a hand. “Mrs Bradley?”

She lowers the clipboard. Images and colours dart across the panel and darken to black. A crackle of a dead microphone from somewhere. When she speaks again her voice trembles. “Yes, Ling?”

“So we cancelled the apocalypse. What now?”

The question catches on their tongues and upends the crushing ocean unto their weary skeletons.

“Well, Ling,” Mrs Bradley answers quietly, her gaze resting on the ceiling, or perhaps on some unseen sky, “now the children can sleep at night.”

Quiet. Lull. The earth stands still.

Her smile returns as she turns her face towards them once more. “And you have your lives ahead of you. All of you. Edward. Winry. Alphonse. Lan Fan. Ling. May. I don’t have to believe in you, because I _know_ you are the best of the best of the best. And all of you are welcome at HQ, and at my home, anytime.” She beams. Waits. Expects something. Anything.

She receives a stunted panda: Xiao-Mei barks sharply and drops off May’s lap to piss on the remains of the broken coffee table. The rangers erupt into laughter, this time genuine, this time real.

“Look upon my works, ye mighty,” Edward quotes, ruffling Winry’s hair as if needing to move his twitching fingers, “and despair, huh?”

“Well,” says Lan Fan, “I suppose if a dead table can still function as an animal toilet, maybe we’re not useless after all.”

Snickers. Alphonse butts in with a friendly smirk: “And they were calling it _Apocalypse Now_.” He winks. “More like _Apocalypse Not_.”

“Nah.” Ling leans back, one arm crossed, the other clutching Lan Fan still. May scoops Xiao-Mei from the floor and scritches the panda behind the ear as a shudder runs through the boy, contorting his features, and Lan Fan’s cautionary nails leave bleeding moons in the back of his hand. The ranger iced for drifting with a kaiju grins. “More like _Apocalypse Now What_?”


	2. Chapter One - Apocalypse Non-aggression Pact

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welcome to the second chapter of Apocalypse Not, the chapter where the plot kicks off. In the Apocalypse Not-verse, children are tested worldwide for their intelligence/tactical and strategic skills. The best of the best are pushed through the Program, after which they are selected to be rangers. If you've seen or read Ender's Game, you can imagine what it's like.
> 
> With regards to the main characters' ethnicities, Fullmetal Alchemist's Xerxes is based off of the ancient Persian Empire. Persian is still a recognised ethnicity today, with most Persians also being of Iranian descent, although the terms are not interchangeable. In this world, van Hohenheim is Persian; Trisha Elric is German-American and returned to Germany following the birth of her son, who has dual citizenship. Winry is half-German (by her mother, Sara) and half-Russian (by her father, Urey) and claims German citizenship.
> 
> The last eight kaiju were codenamed after the vices due to them marking the start of the budgetary issues plaguing the Project. Ling Yao drifted with a piece of the kaiju codenamed Greed. The final kaiju, Otou-sama or Father, was so called because of its status as the only level five kaiju on Earth.
> 
> In this fic, non-italicised writing can be assumed to be in English unless the other language is written out explicitly, such as the Russian "privyet". Italicised writing, when not obviously used for emphasis, will be in another language as indicated by the prose. On occasion, if an entire conversation takes place in another language, I'll mark that explicitly in the prose. Apologies in advance for any translation issues, since I'm relying on secondary sources.
> 
> Fullmetal Wildcat is the Elrics' jäger. You can guess which brother thought of which part of the name (and where Edward absolutely drew the line at naming it "Fullmetal Kitten"). Amaranth Pulse is May Chang's jäger. Runner Inferno was the jäger piloted by Maes Hughes and Roy Mustang prior to the former's death. "Runner" is pulled from the film "Blade Runner" and was selected by Hughes as a nod to his obsession with throwing knives.
> 
> The post-kaiju world is markedly different from ours, hence the "Slavic States" and the "Asiatic Alliance". Building and repairing giant robots as well as working with the refugees from affected areas lead to regions collapsing inwards. Per Pacific Rim, the main powers of this world are China, Russia, the United States, and Australia, although Australia is currently dealing with issues of its own thanks to its location.
> 
> Chapters will mostly alternate between the recovering characters and the political plot, for now.

The press did not miss the coincidence of the sudden arrivals of President Roy Mustang and Prime Minister Olivier Mira Armstrong to Berlin, the former a day after the latter. Despite the Jäger Project’s headquartering in Hong Kong, the Germans had taken an interest in securing their citizen’s patent rights, and since the country had not supplied a jäger design, the United Nations had deemed the copyright case’s decision to rest in the original cradle of the Project.

Although Winry Rockbell had silently retired to her newly purchased manor in the countryside, the press swarmed over the battleground of red tape and lawyers’ lies: “ _Dr Rockbell’s engineering and original ideas certainly made these mechs battle-worthy_ ,” a breathless reporter claimed over the radio of the Grüner Käfer café, “ _but could that be enough to win official rights over the schematics? And what will that mean for the post-kaiju world? Please welcome the esteemed historian Dr Sciezka Brzenska, here to share with us the terrifying potential future of a civil war. The kaiju may not have been humanity’s greatest—"_

The radio snapped off with an alarming crack. A waitress and a pot of coffee emerged from seeming nothingness to hover over the drained mug. “Mehr Kaffee?”

“Nein.” The waitress raised an eyebrow, and the woman seated at the café sighed. “Danke,” she tacked on curtly. The silver cross at her neck clinking, the waitress vanished to bother another patron.

Bracing himself against the glass table with one hand, the dark-haired man who had clicked off the radio slid into the curly-backed chair across from her. His navy blue suit had creased at the edges. “Privyet,” he offered with a gracious smile. “Surely you don’t think the war-mongerers could be right about that post-apocalyptic two-minutes-to-midnight cataclysm _certain_ to befall us all.” He chuckled and ordered himself a coffee in slow English. “After all, the animosity between America and Russia ended the moment the world’s other superpower fell.”

The woman studied him from over the brown-ringed rim of her mug. “Now, now, there’s no need to put down one own’s country.” His irises darkened ever so slightly, and she leaned forward, pursing her pink-painted lips. “Especially not a country arrogant enough to claim two continents under its own name.”

“If I recall, it was an American who landed the final blow on Father.”

Her brow furrowed. “Ah, Otou-sama. The level five kaiju.” Her Slavic accent buzzed over the word: _kaizhu_. “And while the boy may have been born in America, he’s Persian and has German citizenship. I suppose, however, that you see the world as either ‘American’ or ‘not yet American’.”

“Right, the Japanese name was formally accepted for the proceedings.” He lifted the coffee to his mouth. The fabric of his characteristic white gloves squeaked faintly. “God, every time I come to Germany I remember why I’m loathe to leave. Nothing could best the infamous coffee of Berlin.” He snorted. “Not even French pride.”

The woman tapped a finger on the radio. “If you’ve come for idle chatter to while away the time, I may suggest a few whorehouses.”

He blinked. “May we speak officially off-record?”

“Even a gold-tongued American knows the shape of his country. Nothing is ever truly off-record.” Her lips curled. “But I may humour you, if only because the idiocy of the United States amuses me.”

Laying his hand over his chest, he lowered his eyelids to an almost sultry half-mast. “You wound me, Olivier. And get yourself more coffee. I told you I’d treat you.”

“Armstrong.” The Prime Minister of Russia leaned back in her chair. “And very well. Allow me to crack open the coffers of the United States. Kaffee, bitte. Und Dessert.”

The waitress scribbled rapidly. “ _Which dessert would you like, ma’am_?”

Her smirk revealed her teeth. “ _Surprise me, if you will. As much dessert as possible. The most expensive option_.”

Mustang stirred his coffee slowly. “What did you order?”

“As always, your mouth runs ahead of your wallet. And your balls.” Reaching across the table, Armstrong curled her hand around the hot mug and tossed her head back. The coffee left her mouth dry and sticky. She grimaced. “Americans, always oversweetening their coffee. Can’t stand the bitterness of reality, hm?”

“Russians, always drowning down the bitterness of their coffee with a bottle or ten of vodka, hm?” He winced. His leg would ache for weeks from the bruise presently blooming from the epicentre on his upper shin. “I take it you’re fighting against the Rockbell estate.”

Armstrong brushed a flyaway strand of golden hair from her face. From the table over the radio blared: “— _affected areas are petitioning for the United Nations to attend to reparations and reconstruction before worrying about the First World. However, China, Russia, and the United States are pressuring for the Jäger Project to be dismantled and the patent issue to be resolved immediately. In the United States, major efforts to detoxify and rebuild the West Coast are already under way. China is likewise officially assisting Hong Kong, while the United Kingdom signed into effect a refugee and salvation treaty with Australia and New Zealand earlier this week_ —”

“Dr Rockbell cannot possibly win.” She touched the tip of her index finger. “The questions are who will repossess the remaining jägers—” The tip of her middle. “—and whether the schematics will be released publicly or merely returned to their original countries.”

“Fullmetal Wildcat and Amaranth Pulse are both damaged, but not irreparably,” he mused. The waitress piled trays of steaming glazed pastries onto Armstrong’s side of the table. “Not like the old Runner Inferno.”

The corners of her mouth lifted. “It sounds like something a pair of teenaged boys would name a sports car.”

“It _was_ named by a pair of teenaged boys.” His shoulders sloped, if for an instant. Crumbs of danishes and strudels clouded the translucent tabletop. When he spoke again, the conversational tone had given way to a fury barely kept in-check. His hands clenched into fists; the handle of his cup sported a hairline crack. “I of all people should know how dangerous those things are.”

Her expression hardened. “Truly, it takes _America_ to elect a washed-up failure.” Mustang discreetly pushed his chair a centimetre away.

“A war hero,” he corrected from behind a locked jaw.

“Who watched my protégé die. You think yourself the only man in the world devastated by his death, _President_.” The Russian edge soaked his title in a bittersweet irony. “A former arms smuggler turned international guardian angel. First successful ranger of the Project. First dead ranger in years. I was at the trial, and I _saw_ the glint in his eye. How is it you Americans say? A diamond in the trough?”

Mustang spread his hands on the glass. Faint wisps of steam faded from the surface of his coffee. “In the rough.” His voice had gone low and scratchy-rough.

“Then he met a cocky bastard by the name of Roy Mustang. And that was the end of whatever chance he had.” Her fork, laden with a scarlet filling like congealed blood, stilled on her plate. She riveted her gaze on his midnight-storm eyes, her tone dipped in Siberian ice and tempered in nuclear heat. “Don’t fuck this up for me, Roy Mustang.”

“As a favour to an old friend?”

Her grip tightened. “While we may have once been allies, the world has moved on, mal’chik loshadh’. I ask in honour of his memory. And for the sake of the world.”

He propped his chin up on his folded hands and delicately arched an eyebrow. “I never pegged you a proponent of world peace, Armstrong.”

“Not quite. On one hand, now is the chance, while the other major powers deal with rebuilding the Pacific Rim.” Bringing her fork up, she chewed steadily, swallowed, sipped at her coffee. Mustang moved not a muscle. “Yet on the other, I would not have my history written as the reason the world went to kaiju blue.”

“A legacy, you mean.” He exhaled. The steam misted in ephemeral shapes. “I understand. If I may inquire . . .” He parted his lips as if to speak, then pressed them together, until she gestured violently with the utensil, spraying crumbs over him. “Why were you iced? And so early in the program? You had the most potential out of our class, except for myself, of course.”

The line of her mouth thinned. “As humble as ever, Mustang. The reason I was iced has nothing to do with you. And at least I served my country well.” Her eyes narrowed to slits of Arctic ice. He fiddled with the end of his tie. “I _left_. Call it creative differences with the administration. You quit and refused to continue. Is it any wonder the Project forced the children through the program so rapidly, when they were all the Project had left?”

“I see.” His chair creaked as he pushed himself away from the table. Standing, Mustang brushed crumbs from his suit and straightened the hem. “If the world ends, can I trust you not to ally with the Chinese?”

“I will do what my country requires of me.” Another bite. “Whether that means an alliance with the United States or with China, or perhaps no alliance at all, will depend on what is best for my country.”

“I see,” he repeated quietly.

Silence, but for the radio still pounding out its alarum on the next table. “— _with most of the remaining pilots of Chinese descent, the ensuing war would be tipped heavily in China’s favour. Of the two jägers still in commission, the Amaranth Pulse would also go to China, while the Fullmetal Wildcat would be returned to the United States. Of course, in the event that Dr Rockbell wins the patent suit, the Project would presumably retain control of the jägers. Dr Rockbell has expressed interest in using them to help devastated areas but believes that the best course of action may be to destroy_ —”

A bell tinkled. The door closed.

Armstrong slammed the fork down hard enough for the plate to rattle and crack in half. “That son of a _bitch_.”

The waitress smiled pleasantly at her. “ _Shall I bring the bill_?”

“ _Yes_.” She speared the remaining slice of cake. Half of it sloped heavily over the tines and dropped to the dish in a messy explosion of chocolate and cream cheese. “ _And a sword. Preferably sharp enough to slice a man from the genitals to the skull in a single strike_.”

The waitress’s eyes widened. “ _Ex-boyfriend_?”

“ _No. That festering asshole promised to pay for my lunch._ ”

“ _Ah_.” Knowingly she inclined her head. “ _I shall fetch the sword most promptly, then_.”

  


“How did the interview go, sir?”

The water under the bridge rippled the image of the two Americans, still amidst the crowd of Berliners in the after-work rush.

“As well as it could have, knowing her.” Mustang rested his elbows on the railing, his gaze somewhere beyond the blonde woman to his left. With her hair clipped short in the back once more, her expression settled into one of peace contemplation, and her clothing reflecting European casual, General Riza Hawkeye seemed almost unrecognisable from the frantic weeks prior to the final kaiju attacks. “She’ll be fighting against Winry’s patent claim, but whether she’ll be friend or foe remains to be seen.”

Hawkeye nodded carefully. “Are you certain that we should be opening this Pandora’s Box, sir?”

“If there’s one thing humanity does well, it’s opening every Pandora’s Box in our path.” His arms slipped to his sides. Stepping gingerly towards her, he gently raised his right hand to seek out her powerful jaw. Her skin warmed against his hand. Cradling her jaw, he felt the smile on her lips. Her fingers curled into the the nooks just above his hips. She tugged him towards her. “We have to be the ones to open it first, because we have the power to control what we unleash.”

“Or perhaps we should wait for someone else to open it. Learn from their mistakes, before we open our own.” Her grip intensified until he could feel the bruises blossoming over his flesh. “As arrogant as you are, sir, I would hate for you to be stupid as well.”

He turned his face until the cool breeze on his cheeks alerted him to the water, to the Berlin skyline carving the heavens with human power. “Perhaps. But we won’t know for years, will we? Hindsight is always twenty-twenty, but that means nothing to a blind man.”

“No.” She sighed, the pressure from her clutch easing. “But it does to me, sir.”

“Two more days until the trial.”

Her touch faded. He groped blindly for the railing. His fingers ached from the pain of skin against stone. “Yes. Two more days until the apocalypse is un-cancelled after all.”


	3. Chapter Two - Apocalypse Norpramin

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This fic won't focus very much on the angst, but I did want to illustrate the codependency/mental situation of the pilots.
> 
> Also, a major thank-you to all of my readers everywhere. Your kudoses, reblogs, and messages are more than a little appreciated!

When Winry Rockbell opens her eyes, studies the pattern of window-shade-dappled light on her ceiling, and manages to slip from the soft safety of the mattress to touch the pads of her feet to the floor, she congratulates herself by lying on the hardwood for another half an hour. By an unspoken agreement, the sun has not risen until someone manages the trek out of bed. Five bodies curl beneath the fortress of blankets, commas of half-finished sentences, edging inwards to make up for the lost space of her impression on the bed. One by one, in fits and starts, the others join her in the cold. Some in half-changed pyjamas. Some in day clothes.

“If we’re gonna flop here like some sacks of soiled diapers,” says Edward at length, “we might as well fucking sleep here tonight.”

Ling yawns. “No, I like the bed. It’s a _big_ bed.”

Xiao-Mei licks May’s cheeks until the girl stirs and flicks on her ear implants. “Do you care about anything else?”

He grins, and Lan Fan steadily lifts her head, propping herself up on her flesh arm, her prosthetic draped awkwardly over her side and stomach. Her messy hair plasters to her forehead and curves along her jaw, framing her pallid face in a sea of darkness. “Yes. Breakfast.”

Murmuring. Winry flexes her fingers and toes. The wood is cold on the small of her back where her top has ridden up. Somehow she drags herself to a sitting position, her heartbeat throbbing dully at her temple, and runs her hands through her matted hair. “Hey.” Five pairs of eyes. Two vibrant gold, three grey-black. Dawn and dusk. Her wards. For them she finds a tattered smile. “What do you guys want for breakfast?”

An explosion. Pancakes. Waffles. Eggs, toast, bacon. Boiled goose eggs, though the latter’s origin earns a shoulder punch. On Alphonse’s request, May digs out a worn atlas from the massive library on the second floor. She slips in her socks and lands on her posterior, sliding into the five bodies still tangled near the bed. Ling points out the existence of international trade. Lan Fan observes the lack of goose eggs in the kitchen and the unlikelihood of anyone motivating themself to purchase more. Laughter. Fierce hugging. On wobbling legs they help one another to their feet. Edward cradles his brother’s body and pads towards the wall upon which hangs the Calendar. The others stand at attention. “August 10th,” announces Alphonse. The paper rips with a satisfyingly loud _trrr_. “Twenty-nine days since.”

“Four weeks,” butts in Edward, one arm under his brother’s knees, the other supporting neck and head. “Four weeks and _change_ , and no kaiju.”

A miniature celebration. Clothing pools on the floor, red, white, blue, pink, yellow, black. A world without shame. New outfits thrown on almost without care, except for Edward, who smooths out every seam and adjusts every corner, and May, who ties her traditional dress and braids her thin hair as though her neatness alone could halt the destruction of some distant universe. The barest standards of decency achieved. Winry gestures towards the door and shoos her friends—though at this point _friendship_ sounds weak and cheap, and idly she rolls the word _codependence_ on her tongue—towards the kitchen. A gaggle of limbs. Slowed by Alphonse’s twitched progress on braces and Edward’s unsteady leg (touches of joy and whispers of wonder at their every step). Held hands, as though letting for an instant would snip the threads between them.

Twenty-nine days without the drift.

“And waking up at 13:04,” May pipes up faintly. “Looks like we’ve broken a new record.”

Winry skims over her words. “I’m tired of broken things.”

The party arrives. The table has been knocked over and tucked into a corner, replaced by a floor plan of cushions and mats. They dissipate into their various tasks: Winry reheats last night’s bacon, Edward rips open a package of microwaveable waffles, May and Alphonse carefully handle the hard-boiled eggs, Lan Fan toasts the bread slices one by one while Ling fulfills orders of butter, jam, plain. A shaking hand drops an egg; lunging to the floor, Ling catches it with his teeth. Winry cleans up. The methodical scrubbing and the aching of her arm focus her mind better than watching the numbers flick to and fro on the microwave. Plastic plates creak as they bend. Finger foods. Hot, but a welcome sensation of pain. They smear butter on toast with their palms and bring syrupy waffles to their lips with sticky fingers. Afterwards they gather at the sink to wash their hands and faces, lay the plates deliberately in the bin or toss them recklessly, discuss what to have for dinner. Roast goose and smoked salmon win out. Mashed potatoes on the side, clementines, almond tea, stir fry. “Those little bread thingies from the buffet,” says Ling, and Winry writes down _croutons_ in measured strokes. Spinning loading screen. The tablet sends the email out.

And then the after-breakfast lull.

They linger mostly in the kitchen. The house presents three gigantic floors to explore, but dust has claimed the universe save for the bedroom and the kitchen and what they call the newsroom with the television and the radio and the video game consoles. And the library that curves around the open hallways on the second floor.

Touch. Fingers on flesh. Tugging on fabric, on hair, on limbs. Forehead, wrist, ankle, stomach, throat. Without the drift Winry huddles between Edward and Lan Fan, May stretched out horizontally over them, Ling coiled between Lan Fan’s thighs with his legs spilling over Winry’s, Alphonse curled up like an open parenthesis around their heads. Scraps of foreign memories bubble below the surface of her thoughts, flashes of colours, sounds, sensations she doesn’t recognise as her own. They pass through her, leaving her deliriously spent. Edward kisses her lazily. Parting her lips, she swallows his tongue. Sucks. He pulls back with a deliciously wet _shll_ and sweeps his lashes over misty golden eyes.

“I’m glad I have you,” she whispers to have something to say.

He kisses her again. Warm. Between them May squeezes her shoulder to caress Alphonse’s abdomen, sign tender words into his flesh, while on her other side Lan Fan shivers and buries her nose in the twenty-year-old’s armpit. “Mm.”

“I don’t think I could wake up every day if I didn’t have to do it for you. All of you.”

His lips feel hot and moist. His bangs tickle her nose; she sneezes and reaches up to wipe his face. Panting, from somewhere. Moaning. Soft. Slow. They talk between kisses, about the weather, about planting a garden maybe to keep themselves occupied, about half-forgotten dreams, about the power of a form that could part the ocean and save the world, about the drift.

“I could tear that out of the jägers with my bare hands,” Lan Fan murmurs, Winry resting her head against the woman’s chest. “I miss the drift.”

“You miss chasing the rabbit.” Ling flicks her shin. May transfers Xiao-Mei to his shoulder she bites the his ear, and Ling snarls at her, his pupils shrunk to pinpricks of light. Edward punches his chest with the prosthetic fist. Whimpering, Ling lowers his head to Lan Fan’s lap.

“Maybe I do.” Her voice shudders on the final syllable. Winry strokes her cheek with the back of her hand. Chinese, broken and empty and hollow. May quietly reminds her, and her eyelids flutter. “I miss _him_ , too.” Her throat quivers with the tightness of one about to cry. “He said I’d always find him in the drift.”

Alphonse butts her side. Winry can feel her ribs bending outwards in retaliation. “And you will. We’ll install a drift console in here.”

“It’ll be nice to drift again,” adds May cheerfully. She hums and clicks something on her implants. Hums again. Dips her head. “It’ll be nice not to feel like your insides are about to explode. It’ll be nice to be with all of you again. It’ll be nice.”

“Damn budget cuts.” Edward presses against her hip. “And damn the reporters for making us look like a shit-ton of crazy motherfuckers. It’s like they don’t get they’ve driving the wrong way on Fuck You So Hard Your Asshole Bleeds And Ruins Your Goddamn Pants Avenue.”

Quiet. Parsimony. The morning entirely, unfortunately free. The ceiling drips water on her flesh until she senses herself melting away into the hours and the silence. Grinding her knuckles into the hard floor she struggles to sit up. In the newsroom she could listen to music or read the latest issue of the engineering and science magazines that used to poster the walls of her room or turn on the television to discover how they make those artistic candles or those vitamin skin patches. Her muscles tense; her sinews tug at her bones. Yet she sinks back into the warmth of the pile. Tears of boredom gather at the corners of her eyes and dry with the passage of apathy.

Time ticks by. Pendulums swing. The imaginary rain patters her face in rhythm to the seconds pulsing away at her jugular. She aches. Her limbs fall asleep. Behind her eyelids flicker sparking wires, computer-patterned designs, jägers locked in place by metal cages. She should have freed them when she had the chance. Fullmetal Wildcat. Emperor Immortal. Amaranth Pulse. The older ones: Runner Inferno, Iceblade Omega, Striker Fury. The babies she could never have, born from her fingers and her mind and her wit. Splintered into great sheets of metal. Melted down in hellish furnaces. Drowned beneath tonnes of icy, salt-corrosive water. Or worse, forced to turn their ripsaws and lasers and nuclear cores against the humanity she had crafted them to protect. A failed architect. A failed demiurge. A failed god.

Her wings of wax have finally melted.

If the others weren’t with her, surrounding her, enveloping her, needing her, she would close her eyes, allow the barest ghost of a smile to curve her lips, and never move again.

Her vision blurs at the shadowy recesses. She regards her trembling hand as an alien object. “I’m thirsty.” May and Edward catch her wrists at the same time.

“No alcohol.”

Yet water doesn’t sear her throat. Doesn’t tear coughs from her jaws. Doesn’t _hurt_ her the way she needs to be hurt to convince herself the final three kaiju haven’t swallowed her whole after all.

Come the evening, visitors. The scant few they welcome. Mrs Hughes and usually Elicia. She bustles about, demands they clean themselves up and dust and vacuum and throw the clothing in the washer and dryer just so and lay out outfits for the next day and yes I saw your email let me make sure you don’t hurt yourself I’m sorry I couldn’t that they were out of salmon and shoo shoo Alphonse don’t burn yourself and put the clothing in the dryer and you’re all much too skinny and should I bring more condoms no Elicia don’t ask what those are and I’m so sorry about the trial Winry and that’s not how you make stir fry Edward let me help you there you go and I downloaded some books for you that I think you might enjoy May and remove the clothing from the dryer and dust and vacuum again and Lan Fan I saw these compression panties in the store I think they might be more comfortable and thank you for setting the table Ling and Alphonse are you doing your physical therapy because you seem much more stable today that’s so sweet and Winry what do you mean what about the trial you didn’t see it ah well I’m sorry. Mrs Hughes places her mug of tea onto the saucer where it shakes like the very cup of trembling. “I’m so sorry, Winry, but the jäger patents were released. The Project has been reduced to the bare essentials. We’re still taking care of you, of course,” she notes warmly. Elicia giggles and tries to ruffle Winry’s hair in an echo of Edward’s favoured method of displaying affection, but Winry doesn’t tilt her head, doesn’t respond to the young girl’s requests for attention. “The designs were released publicly. The individual jägers are being returned to their countries of origin. Not repaired, of course.” She smiles wryly. “And we refused to release the Program or the mechanics of the drift. So I doubt they’ll be able to use them for what you’re afraid of.”

Winry kneels on her mat and observes the steady purpling of her fingertips. She licks her inside of her mouth. Salty. Desiccated. A bead of sweat cools a streak down her brow. Her shoulderblades burn as though wings were slashing through her skin to burst into feathered existence. She parts her lips. Breathes. Watches her world darken and give way at the edges.

“I’m thirsty,” she whispers.

 

When he finishes tucking the blankets around her and under her, Edward Elric kisses her forehead and steps back from the bed. He settles his weight on the balls of his feet, and he waits. For what, he’s not entirely certain.

Her chest rises and falls. Alive.

The others congregate around the bed, Alphonse propped up between Ling and May, his crutches cast aside by the door. Wide eyes. Hushed voices. Terrified of losing a piece of themselves. He catches a jumpy Elicia in his right hand, but she shies away from the cold metal grip, even through the gloves. Mrs Hughes lays a wet washcloth on Winry’s forehead. The creases in her forehead and around her eyes have etched premature grief into her face despite her usual easygoing smile. “It’s only a faint. She’ll be fine.” She sighs. Relief lessening the wrinkles worry has raked in her flesh. “I thought she already knew about the patents. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”

“Those bastards.” His fists snap invisible necks. “I could kill them all.”

Lan Fan growls out the wrath shaking his shoulders. “Should we?” Ling grins. His teeth are sharp, too sharp.

He unfurls his clenched fingers. “I didn’t mean—”

Doorbell. The hardwood under the pads of his feet vibrates.

“I thought,” May remarks mildly, “that only registered guests could be on the premises.”

Alphonse tries a genuine smile. “You don’t know. Maybe it’s Riza. Or Pres—Roy.”

Doorbell.

Elicia bolts from his grip. The ceiling spins past him too quickly and he lands on his back, head and elbows throbbing in agony. “I’ll get it!” she yelps en route to the front. Slides towards the stairs. Feet on the steps. Palm slapping the banister. He hears her leap the last few when the doorbell ring slams his mind against rock. “Who _is_ it?”

The security system beeps. The door opens.

A voice, not unkind, but cold enough that shards of frost slosh through his veins. Gooseflesh across his form. The ports at his right shoulder and left thigh stretch his skin in radial slashes of pain. “Elicia Hughes. Good evening. I take it your mother’s here as well.”

“Mmhm!” Their words carry to the second floor, flown up by carrion birds. Steadily Edward paces towards the open hallway to the bridge that looks over the first floor. He swallows, hard. His constricted throat bobs around the painful knot.

He almost can’t breathe.

Almost.

Patter. Bare feet. Boots. Elicia rounds the corner holding the hand of a dark-skinned man who once represented one of the Project’s greatest allies.

Miles Armstrong, Chief of Security, greets him with an affable smile. “Edward Elric,” he says, extending a hand. Right hand. Edward doesn’t move. “Tell me, how has the not-end of the world been treating you?”

He presses his palm against the banister. Tendons colour pale ridges into the back of his head. “Why the flying into a goddamn jet engine _fuck_ are you here?”

The Russian chuckles. “I have an offer for you. For all of you.” Over the tops of his sable shades, his crimson irises glimmer. “And if you have an any intention of staying together, you might want to consider it.”


	4. Chapter Three - Apocalypse Notification

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apologies for the delays! The next chapter should be quite interesting.
> 
> After Maes Hughes and King Bradley's deaths prior to the opening of this AU, Maria Ross became Marshall of the Pan-Pacific Defence Corps, the military organisation responsible for the defence of the Pacific Rim, funded by the nations around the Rim. The other organisation described in Apocalypse Not is the Jäger Project, which is specifically the wing of the Pan-Pacific Defence Corps responsible jägers and their pilots. The Project is currently headed by Mrs Bradley.
> 
> To clarify, the final decision with regards to the jäger designs can be boiled down to the following: 1) All of the original designs and patents except those few owned explicitly by Winry Rockbell are released to their original owners and/or to the public as appropriate, such that anyone can utilise or reverse-engineer the technology for the benefit of humanity, etc.; 2) the two remaining jägers, the Fullmetal Alchemist and the Amaranth Pulse, are returned to America and China, respectively; 3) the remains of the other jäger are likewise returned to their countries of origin if the countries wish to keep them or are otherwise discarded; 4) no jäger can be built or repaired without the express permission of the United Nations; 5) the United Nations cannot authorise any combat, military, etc. use of the jägers. Of course, one has to remember that the fact that laws exist don't mean that they will not be broken (just consider post-WWI Germany and how well the attempt to neutralise the German military went, what with Germany secretly amassing a powerful force that the rest of world couldn't do anything about because it was bogged down in depression and financial panic, not unlike the post-kaiju world). As well, despite the Project's training methods becoming closely guarded secrets, technically speaking, there are no laws that prevent former pilots from becoming pilots again save for the entire no combat stipulation.
> 
> By the by, Paninya LeCoulte and Dr Sciezka Brzenska will make future appearances. And for that one anon who left me a curious message, yes, because "Hannibal Chau" remained alive at the end of the Pacific Rim, the equivalent of a hedonistic black market smuggler who takes pride in his appearance and wealth, runs a massive underground operation disguised as a fairly innocuous restaurant/bar, and is associated with the guy who drifted with kaiju is also alive in this AU. May I remind you that the guy who drifted with kaiju is Ling. Ahem. Carry on.

“Major Rebecca Catalina, reporting for duty.” She spoke with a thick American accent.

“Well, your Cantonese isn’t that bad. I’ll give you that much, Lieutenant.” With a sharp gesture of the chin, Marshall Maria Ross indicated the vacancy next to her in the glass elevator. Catalina replaced her hand by her side. The two rode upwards in silence but for the vast woosh of the elevator climbing the translucent wiring. Below them stretched the vestiges of the Jäger Project, the formerly spacious jäger holding cages replaced with a sequence of disarrayed cranes and forklifts steadily packing up and taking away the multi-trillion-dollar machinery. Trails of wiring suggested where plug had been ripped from walls like dribbles of blood. Empty supports towered into the cavernous ceiling, glistening ribs with the internal organs removed and sent to far-off nations to prepare for war. Ross curled her lip; the process reminded her of observing a wounded elephant slowly, agonisingly dying. Hope had long since fled. One by one, the necessary systems shut off, until the light dissipated entirely. Still, the former glory of the Pan-Pacific Defence Corps had yet to desert the Hong Kong Shatterdome entirely, and with a grim sort of satisfaction Ross observed the major’s pupils shrink and dilate as she ogled at the sheer unadulterated size of the facility. “You’ve never seen a kaiju or a jäger up close, have you?”

Clearing her throat, Catalina saluted once more. “Y-yes, sir. Once, sir.”

Ross calculated the hundred or so seconds they had while the elevator at last reached the catwalk at jäger eye level. “Care to tell me about it? I like to know about others’ experiences, even if the kaiju are no longer a threat.” Catalina’s eyebrows disappeared beyond her curly brown hairline. “One thing you learn working as the military head of something like the Corps is to always assume the worst, because someone has to.”

“You’re a pessimist?” responded the major, and Ross dipped her head, once. “Sir,” she tacked on hastily. So Catalina had previously served under a friend. Typical of the American military, to silently relax the anti-fraternisation laws at the higher levels, quiet promotions, quieter minglings of command until soldiers were playing poker over their office desks.

“A realist.”

Catalina’s arm twitched as though about to salute again, or as though about to throw said arm around her shoulders, more likely. Kudos to her for thinking to salute instead. “I lived in Orange County—on the coast, California, near the big Los Angeles—for most of my life, so when the Big One hit, I laughed that it hadn’t been an earthquake.” She paused in the midst of her conversational tone, her timbre instantly altering to a snappier, more professional beat. “Sorry, I keep forgetting you’re not American. You look California-y, y’know? Not that all Americans are California-y. But you look _surf's-up_ American is what I mean, if that makes any sense.” The faint distress gave way to a winded sigh, and the major hung her head. “I’m not very good at this first impression thing, am I?”

“At ease, Major.” The elevator hissed gently as the doors opened. The two women stepped in unison  through the door onto the thin catwalk connecting the two sides of the facility together. To the major’s credit, she knew enough to keep her gaze riveted on the destination rather than allowing it to roam over the eighty metres drop to the ground. Prior to the Corps’s destruction, the officers had erected a bulletin board in the mess hall that recorded the horizontal distance achieved by almost every rookie’s first projectile vomit upon their first sky climb. At the middle of the catwalk, leaning against the railing of the circular cleared that once marked the holding cage of the Amaranth Pulse, waited President Mustang, a dark-haired attendant in a crisp American uniform by his side. Out of a lingering respect for the best friend of the former head of the Pan-Pacific Defence Corps and a former ranger, Ross increased the weight of her footsteps, and Mustang lifted his head in her direction. “Good afternoon, President. As promised, the Fullmetal Wildcat and the remains of the Runner Inferno will be sent Stateside as soon as—” She swept a hand in a grand arc over the railing. “—the parts can be packed. If I may say, I find it incredible that you’re willing to pay for the shipment of the Inferno as well.”

President Mustang shrugged. After a moment of his adam’s apple bobbing imperceptibly at his throat, he managed a reply in a somewhat butchered Cantonese that reminded her more of the Mandarin dialect. “Consider it to be for nostalgia’s sake.”

“I take it, Mr President, that the Americans are aware that the United Nations’ stipulations also apply to the arrogant freedom-seekers.” She kept the threat in her words veiled, however thinly, and beside her Catalina clenched her fist ever so slightly.

The President had already slipped into a nonchalant, easygoing tone, the sort that could defuse a live bomb, the sort that likely got him elected in the first place along with his handsome smile and war veteran credentials. “Of course. As I recall, the American delegate was one of the first to concur with the Treaty of Hong Kong. It’s just that, for me, the Runner Inferno . . .” Now a hint of a wistful sadness, of a remembrance of times gone by creeped into his speech: Ross could almost taste the American pie, had she ever consumed such a monstrosity. “. . . it’s _him_ , you know?”

That quieted her. The marshall linked her fingers behind her in parade rest, despite not needing to do so, and she noted that Catalina copied her movements. “I understand the fondness for old memories. As long as no jäger are built or repaired, except by express permission of the United Nations.”

“ _So Winry did win in the end_ ,” Mustang muttered in English. The dark-haired attendant—vaguely Ross recognised him as one of General Hawkeye’s, and a name bubbled up shortly thereafter, a benefit to her training as a professional investigator: Sergeant Major Kain Fuery, communications specialist—removed his glasses to wipe them. Back in Cantonese he continued: “And the Americans won special permission to restore the Fullmetal Wildcat to operable conditions for celebratory purposes.” _Won_ , caught the marshall. “Gone are the days of raging war, Marshall Ross. My people need to recover as any other’s, particularly with our territories as damaged as they are.”

“That explains the inordinate spending of taxpayers’ money on personal projects.” At her words Fuery coughed nervously. Ross extinguished the competitive flare sparking up in her fingertips to coolly nod in Catalina’s direction. “I appreciate the assistance.”

“Well, you did mention that she was approximately the sole competent member of the original American team stationed at the base.” Mustang touched the hem of his hat.

Catalina snapped to attention. “Thank you, sir. That, heh, means a lot to me?” Lilting up the end, she quibbled the corner of her mouth as though unsure of, Ross presumed, the friendliness of her words.

“At ease, Major.” The formalities aside, Ross indicated the mind-boggling extent of the Project once more, despite his inability to grasp its volume. And yet—he had served his time as ranger as much as she had. Perhaps he could recall the nearly infinite scale of the metal shell which had witnessed the birth of twenty-five-story monsters and housed their impossibly weighty bulks. Perhaps he could recollect the heaviness of the sense of infinitesimality that settled into one’s bones, caved one’s ribs, crushed one’s lungs and heart to see the jägers so close. Perhaps he could remember the feeling of standing in the midst of the eye of the storm of the universe. Perhaps she needed a stiff drink. The Black Dog she kept in her office for special occasions would suffice. “Mr President, if you need anything else, please let one of the personnel on duty know. Or, if you would like, I could dispatch someone to show—to guide you around.”

He waved a dismissive hand in her general direction. “I’m quite all right. I simply wanted to visit the old place before the United Nations tear it down.”

“I see. In any case, I have duties to report to.” Striding past him, Ross paused at the mouth of the catwalk and turned a few degrees of an angle back. The major mimicked her actions but for the final turn, and she skidded to an abrupt halt. “It was nice seeing you again, Roy.”

“Would’ve been nice seeing you too.” Mustang laughed under his breath. Catalina sniggered so quietly even Ross nearly missed the sound. Laughter. “Still, hearing your voice is good enough. Maes trusted you enough to put you in charge, Marshall Ross. So do I. I more than trust your judgment.” She tucked her smile away for later use.

The marshall saluted. “With luck, sir, so will the rest of the world.” As she spoke she felt the communicator buzz in its belt clip. No, not her official communicator. Her personal line. Gracia Hughes. Ross checked her watch: Judging by the time, Gracia’s message would consist of some ridiculous story involving her daughter and the former rangers under the guise of assuring her, and thereby the Chairwoman, of said rangers’ safety. “ _Marshall Ross speaking_ ,” she said in curt German, in an attempt to sound at least partially professional. The instant Gracia inhaled, Ross’s heart relocated to the space between her jaws and crashed blood against her eardrums. With her thumb she flicked the switch to record the conversation. “ _What’s wrong_?”

“ _Maria_.” A shuddering pulse of static. “ _They were kidnapped. The Russians._ ”

Her hold on the phone case tightened. “ _Describe them._ ” Catalina and Mustang raised their heads at the same time, the former prepared, the latter concerned underscored with a faint trace of confusion.

“ _Tall. Dark skin, light hair in a sort of ponytail. Distinctive facial hair. I didn’t see the others_.”

“ _They went willingly_?”

Another pulse of static, this one steadier. “ _I’m not entirely sure. He told Ed something, and I think he may have threatened them, or me, if the kids didn’t comply. Winry promised me that they would be back, but . . ._ ”

“ _I understand. How long ago did this happen_?” One question at a time, Ross recounted to herself while she inspired calmly through the calm and expired through the mouth, focusing on the cycling of her breaths and on memorising the information.

“ _Just now. Five minutes ago, maybe? I called the police, too, but with the manor so far in the countryside I knew I had to call you right away_.”

Inhale. Exhale. Inhale. Exhale. Ten second cycles. “ _Did you see the vehicle? Describe it._ ”

“ _I didn’t see very much. It was . . . some kind of car. Light green. Smallish. A sedan._ ”

“ _Is there anything else you can tell me_?” Gracia hesitated breathing into the receiver, and Ross closed her eyes. “ _Thank you. We’ll get them back, Gracia, I promise. I’ll keep you posted. Please, Gracia, don’t worry. I’ve handled far worse cases than this. Now, I need to start the investigation imm_ —”

“ _Maria Ross._ ” Now Gracia’s voice firmed into a maelstrom, the tempered mother replaced by the spitfire who had changed the face of the Jäger Project before her future husband ever became involved. “ _Understand that if you don’t get those kids back to me, I’ll unleash the fires of hell on your ass and the asses of every damned friend and foe alike._ ”

Ross did not do _fear_. But Hughes could elicit something close. “ _Yes, ma’am_.”

“ _Now move your ass._ ”

The line went dead. Ross glanced over at Catalina, at Mustang, at Fuery. “Mr President.” The marshall saluted. “You’ll have to excuse me.”

“W _hat the hell was that_?” he barked, Cantonese forgotten in the wake of anger and worry. “ _Is it about Winry and Edw_ —”

“Mr President.” Steel. Ice. Hard, cold, unbreaking. The President was not the only one capable of affecting a tone. “As the Marshall of the Pan Pacific Defence Corps until such a time that I will no longer be needed to serve, I order you to stand down.”

The silence congealed around them. His blind gaze bored into a distant horizon she could not hope to see; Marshall Ross turned, signalling to the major, and began to walk-run as briskly as humanely possible off of the catwalk.

No. Marshall Ross did not do _fear_.

But she did do _assume the worst_.

And she certainly did _one minute to midnight_.


	5. Chapter Four - Apocalypse Noiseless

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For you folks reading this on LP, the mods emailed back and I should finally have the italics issue fixed. Thank you for bearing with me.
> 
> Extreme hugs and thank-yous to my darling readers. You guys are the absolute best. You _go_.
> 
> This chapter was supposed to be longer, but then I realised how absolutely ridiculously lengthy the next scene will be, so have an intermediate in-between from Lan Fan's for now. 
> 
> The woman mentioned in this chapter is one of the Armstrong sisters, specifically Amue Armstrong. Although she and her younger sister Strongine were omitted from both versions of the anime as far as I recall, I loved their character designs and wanted to incorporate them in some way. The cast is getting large enough that I might start pulling from 2003 characters to help me fill out the roster. I can assure you that, if so, their characters will be essentially self-explanatory, and you won't need to watch the 2003 anime in order to understand their personalities, motivations, etc.
> 
> For those of you wondering: Winry is on depression medications. Alphonse is also on medications, while Edward and Lan Fan still require painkillers for their prosthetics on occasion. And yes, to that one anon, Winry is absolutely terrified of the ocean, a fear amplified by the first time she drifted during the final battle.
> 
> The next chapter is likely going to be an intermission/flashback in addition to featuring a terrifying decision at the end. Stay tuned.

“I have,” says Alphonse Elric mildly, having worked his tongue around the gag, “a question.”

The back of the chair houses eight, the last two rows of seats ripped up and replaced anew with narrower, smaller, backless versions existing solely to serve for transport. From the sides of the unique seats chain metal handcuffs; from beneath the bottom, ankle-cuffs. The six pilots locked into place, Armstrong waiting serenely in the front row along with the Elric brothers to Winry’s right, the other ice-haired man brooding in the back near the three of Chinese descent, to May’s left. Compressing her thighs together not by choice, Lan Fan steadies Ling with a firm pressure on the knee and examines their captor. She has little need to memorise his visage: He wears a distinctive mark over his face like a ceremonial tattoo, like a promise from his deity emblazoned over the tapestry of his life. A grey tilted cross, the focal point directly below the centrepoint between his eyes. His stare persists at the area where a window curves into the monotonous wall of the altered sedan. The window tints dark, too dark to see into or out of, yet appeared akin enough to a window from the outside when the Russians had ushered them into the vehicle in the first place.

Beyond the front row, a steel grey grate extends from the ceiling to the floor. Through a thin slot at the top light and sound filter. The drivers, safe and sound from harm. And they’ve some sort of Slavic rock radio on, softly, presumably to assist in throwing off suspicion if stopped, although the set-up seems geared to never allow for that.

Armstrong angles his head in Alphonse’s direction. Shifting his sunglasses down the bridge of his nose between two velvety-gloved fingers, the Russian does not so much as contract a muscle of his mouth except to mouth the corners of the words. “Yes, Mr Elric?”

Lan Fan observes Edward furiously crushing his jaws together, reminiscent of man attempting to chew through a leg caught in a trap, until his pulse pounds at the junction of his chin and throat. “The scarred man.”

“Yes.”

“He’s a member of the cult,” says Alphonse levelly; although Lan Fan cannot read his expression from her current perspective, she watches him tense his knuckles only for his tendons to betray him in fluttering fingertips, “that worshiped the kaiju as angels.”

The impassivity of the Russian’s face remains in immutable, unchanging blankness twisted at the rim into an intimidating sobriety. “And if he is?”

“The dots don’t connect, Mr Armstrong,” May brings up helpfully. Evidently the dispensing of gags has not affected Armstrong, or the scarred man, in any semblance. Or certain gags were specifically selected for ease of removal. “The Russians have no working jägers, unless they have somehow reverse-engineered them and hidden them in Siberia or another desolate place.” She leans forward. The light from the grate slit passes over her irises to ignite a dark glint from within. “For some reason, you’re working with the angel cult. Their name escapes me.” Her mouth swoops downwards.

Alphonse glances at her, turning his head, and Lan Fan catches the concern leaking from the creases at his eyes and lips. “You haven’t been experimenting with kaiju, have you?”

“Or do you plan to kill us to keep up from piloting?” adds May not a heartbeat later, the two trading off sentences in perfect sync as though drifting. For a moment Lan Fan captures the sensation, all of her humming in unison, her leylines of energy settled somehow into parsimony, into peace, into the Pacific Rim, and then the feeling slips between her gaping fingers and pools on the ground beside her discarded heart.

“Because we’re not going to pilot.” Like a thread connecting all of them abruptly snipping, the six remaining pilots sink into their seats. Lan Fan rebounds to spread her legs against May and Ling’s knees more heavily, their thighs warm contact. Touch. While May leans into her shoulder to tuck her head beneath Lan Fan’s chin,

Winry raises her head; Edward calms the frantic grinding of his jaw. “None of us has any intention to pilot again so long as we live. We’re done.” To punctuate, Alphonse kicks the grate with both longs, his right lagging behind his left, and murmurs a curse under his breath. Choking on the gag, his brother unleashes an offended noise. Alphonse tilts his neck in such a manner that Lan Fan can envision the sheepish smile gracing his rounded face. “Sorry, Brother.”

The ridiculousness of the situation dawns upon the six at the same time: Kidnapped by a formerly allied force with unknown status and unknown intentions, driving off chained and gagged to some undisclosed location and potentially to their own deaths—and Edward is worried about his brother saying the word “ _fuck_ ”.

That insane sort of laughter bubbles out of them, smashing them against the seats in shoulder-shaking seizures and bidding them half-snap their wrists on the metal rims of the cuffs. When the first wave of mirth rages through her quivering form and Lan Fan regains enough control to look up, the scarred man has affixed his scarlet stare to her. To her arm.

He rumbles out a several succinct sentences in a language she doesn’t know, but the words don’t ring of the growls of a Slavic tongue. Armstrong responds in distinct Russian. Snaking a hand through the seats, Lan Fan taps Winry’s forearm. She flicks her gaze towards the backseat. Despite the exhaustion shading the bags beneath her eyes a delicate violet, the deep blue of her irises reflects a startling mental clarity behind the obscuring curtains of depression. A faint dip of the chin. A nod. Lan Fan rolls the knee in contact with May’s in a circular motion. She tracks the girl’s eye movements: May glances first at the scarred man, then at Winry; as Lan Fan tilts her head towards May’s cuffed hands, May bends her right wrist up and down in two brief arcs. Likewise Lan Fan catches, or attempts to catch, Ling’s attention only to find him kneading his bottom lip with his pointed incisors. A trickle of blood leaks through the corner of his mouth, and Lan Fan blocks the agonising memory, fishing out another in its place: Shortly after drifting with the damaged sample of brain material from the kaiju codenamed Greed, he took to consuming raw meat in uncontrollable bouts that left blackish-crimson, festering trails of entrails seeping over the floors of the lock-broken freezers. Dissatisfied with the blunt teeth of the human maw, Ling evidently filed his at some point into serrated blades, blades now tearing at his own flesh. She knocks her knee on his. His mouth tightens into a thin line but for the bow-like curve of his lips. He mumbles into the gag. Not mumbles so much as vocalises. She strokes the length of his calf with the slope of her foot where she reaches, and the taut slope of his shoulders loosens.

Beneath her the vehicle’s vibrations lessen as the automobile rolls to a stop. Armstrong balances his shades upon the bridge of his nose, his pupils shrinking at the change in light like a camera shutter recording their faces at this precise instant of trepidation. In those miniscule circles of sable Lan Fan reads the superiority of an emperor reclining elegantly upon xir golden throne far above xir vassals prostrating themselves before xem. She rubs her left arm against the cuff, feels the hard contours of the knife concealed within her prosthetic. “Listen,” says Armstrong in an English that commands her attention; she locks her jaw. “We’ll be flying to a safe location.”

May makes a faint noise in the bottom of her throat. “Safe for whom?”

“Safe so that we can begin to make decisions without China and the United States teleporting to your doorstep,” he answers mildly. “I don’t mean any of you any harm.”

“Ah, yes, this explains the gags and handcuffs.”

Armstrong pinches the bridge of his nose. “A security measure, Ms Chang. Now, please listen to me carefully. We will be flying, and the conditions are cramped enough. It will be easier on everyone to induce a state of temporary unconsciousness for transport. I assure you that all of you will safe, together, and in physical contact with one another.”

Edward and Lan Fan strain at their impediments before the Chief of Security has concluded his statement. But Alphonse nods thoughtfully. “Of course. Small space. It would be far easier this way.”

His hand a bulge in an inner pocket, Armstrong removes a thick, cylindrical device and two bulkier black articles on straps. He offers one to the scarred man, who dons it over his mouth, and straps one on his lower face as well. As he issues a final instruction, the partial gas mask deforms his words as though he were speaking through an ocean: “Inhale deeply.” Barking an order to the driver of the vehicle, he closes the grate dividing them, and the backseat falls into almost complete darkness. A dull scarlet light blinks, switches to a steady green. The sleeping gas. Inhaling, Lan Fan stretches her lungs to a faint ache at the front of her chest.

The top of the cylindrical canister audibly pops up. Escaping fluid hisses; a saccharine scent of sweetness diffuses through the cramped space. While the dim light fades to utter dark, such a dark that even the play of shadow upon the wall, a messenger of distant stars, has given way to a suffocating gravity weighing down her eyelids and squeezing the air from her lungs like innards from a dying worm. In the drift, Winry would fear-speak the terrible weight of the endless ocean that bore upon them in the final battle, and the six would link arms and minds, a phalanx, protecting one another, together supporting the burden where one could not. With May and Ling on her either side, with Edward, Winry, and Alphonse’s breathing deepening in the front row, Lan Fan wields her breath like a diamond aegis against the encroaching midnight. Hands cautiously glide over her, never once groping down or lingering upon a more sensitive curve, gingerly searching for a particular space. Two fingers pause at her jugular. As her grandfather taught her, she wills her pulse to drop. The scarred man mutters in the unknown language. She hears the crinkle of Ling’s clothing as the man checks the boy as well. Her lungs begin to burn down at the bottom: She slipped a box of pins down her windpipe to pierce the frail alveoli trembling within, or so the pain seems as it shoots rivulets of agony through her tissues, stabs hot needles to pick at the sinews around her heart and tear the tender tendons below her lungs. Perhaps darkness already plays at the edges of her vision, yet the midnight world leaves her blind and senseless, drowning in her own inability to breathe.

Her fingertips feel cold, so cold. She becomes aware of a numbness seeping upwards through her legs.

No. No! _No!_

Presently, _light_. The doors swing upon by roof hinges, sailing upwards like the wings of a osprey hawk soaring over the waves with a gashed fish gasping in the relentless prison of its talons. Fresh air. Shaking with the effort, Lan Fan exhales as slowly, surreptitiously as possible. Inhales all the deeper. Despite her muscles caught aflame and her body craving the shallows, rapid breaths of desperation, Lan Fan cycles with a deliberate indolence while the scarred man removes their handcuffs one by one, hoisting them over his broad shoulders. A tall white women with even broader shoulders carries the trio of blondes, Lan Fan observes through the narrow slit of her barely opened eyes. A field of green. Hills. In the distance, a city of some kind. A sable fuselage hunched over the grass a few metres away. Stubby-winged, thick-bodied, rounded. Armstrong indicates the blemish on the landscape. He speaks to the men in fluid Russian, and Lan Fan catches a handful of words: _Good. Expecting us. Their decision. Carry over there. Can you. Their decision_ , again. _Hurry_.

She lowers her eyelids. Their bodies tumble into cushioned softness. Someone presses her face on an unyielding material like a sturdy pillow. Rough fingers close straps around her chest, abdomen, forehead, ankles, wrists. Already her neck aches, the arms tucked beneath her bulk screaming pins and needles. Lan Fan tenses her muscles as best she can against the restraints until feeling returns. At that moment another cushion pushes down on the back of her head. Her shoulder blades throb warm pain. The tight space compresses over on every side, wraps itself around her shape, outlines the map of her fury and fear.

She can hardly breathe.

She prays the others inhaled the gas. But one of them must stay awake, to understand, to comprehend, to know.

Abruptly, voices. English. Distant. “Will it really be their decision?” Armstrong. Just outside. Lan Fan wonders if the scarred man and the powerful woman might not know English.

“If they don’t want to pilot, they won’t,” crackles the distorted timbre of a—man? Woman? Enby? She can’t quite tell from the corruption of the soundwaves and the material around her ears. “You and I know that both. But if they won’t pilot for us, then we have to ensure that no one will force them. Do you understand?”

A long silence, and Lan Fan strains to detect the sound of a fuselage door closing or some other indication the conversation has cut off.

“Of course, sir.” A sentence she cannot make out. “I suppose that they who are about to die salute us.”

“If they can salute us in death,” responds the voice carved from the white underbelly of Arctic permafrost, “I will lose whatever respect for them the Kaiju Wars brought on.”


	6. Chapter Five - Apocalypse Notoriety

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aaand that should include the introduction of our major players, save for Izumi Curtis, but she's not coming in until later. As promised, more Paninya LeCoulte, a former engineer for the Project who quit. Unlike Winry Rockbell, who focused more on the technical aspects, Paninya was in charge of the biomedical aspects and was a major force behind the drift, and who is notorious for doing whatever she wants whenever she wants.
> 
> Considering the Russians' kidnapping of the pilots and the fact that the Americans believe the Russians to be working with the Chinese, it should be clear just what the Americans plan to do.
> 
> The Runner Inferno is capable of acting essentially like a massive Tesla coil gun. Because the jägers in Pacific Rim technically violate the laws of physics in terms of mass versus velocity, I figured that I could get away with slightly stretching the capabilities of Tesla coil weapons, which do exist, but aren't as effective. Perhaps kaiju flesh simply channels electricity far better than do modern materials and is easier to catch on fire. I can explain the mechanics of such a weapon if necessary.
> 
> By the by, at no point am I attempting to cast any side as the villains. Also, I hope to move to a regular writing schedule as soon as I work out the last few kinks in the plot summary.
> 
> As always, feel free to shoot me off any inquiries or questions.

When they captured Paninya LeCoulte at last, they found her living amongst the broken, flooded tent cities that had sprung up following the destruction on the West Coast of the United States, breaking bread with those who had watched their entire lives go up in thick plumes of ash and kaiju blue, jerryrigging radios and vegetable batteries and solar-powered generators, engineering makeshift prosthetics for the thousands injured in ensuing panic and infections using techniques from the crafting of the jägers. The innovative designs of incorporating the jägers’ systems of interpreting nervous impulses from humans into modern bionic prosthetics spread far along the ravaged coast, particularly after a friendly denizen of the internet assisted her with spreading the message throughout internet forums and engineering sites wherein she could upload the schematics and allow anyone to view them. Her username, autonomousChainmail, became synonymous with the life-changing techniques she’d pioneered while working with the Pan-Pacific Defence Corps and perfected in the field: Like the eight-character tagline she signed her creations off with, _automail_ surged in popularity. Eventually they traced her location: Several kilometres north of a fairly large refugee town called Nuevo Diego.

When the helicopter descended upon a sparse landscape dotted here and there with clusters of shacks huddling near abandoned supermarkets or drop-off points for supplies, the blades cleaved the air in unerring strokes of a lethal precision. One of the metal sheets bent over to function as a roof upon one of the shacks screeched out a protest prior to blowing off, curling inwards on itself as it sailed through the skies and landed metres away. Screams. Gunshots. Steadily the sable craft quieted; the dust storm subsided while the churning blades slowed and stopped. Two men wearing American uniforms exited the helicopter, their hands raised above their heads, and the yelling ebbed, if briefly. Approaching a circle of Californians camped around a wind-murdered campfire, drowning in their oversized jackets and coats, eyes narrow and cheekbones sharp, the soldiers tossed a bag towards the refugees and waited with easy smiles on their lips.

“Evenin’, gentlemen,” started one of them, a blond with the tall, lanky build of a Frenchman. “Sorry about the disturbance. Nice place you’ve got yourselves.”

A refugee seated in the centre of the semicircle leaned forward to poke at the bag with a stick she held tightly in her left hand. She shifted the almost-finished cigarette poised at the corner of her mouth. “Would’ja lookit that.” A boy to her right whistled. “Thank God we’re saved. A couple cans’a provisions. Matches. Big ole clothes. Even some batteries!” The other refugees applauded with enough sarcasm to kill a grown blue whale.

“Hey, ‘least the government’s doing _somethin’_ , eh? ‘S nice not to have to hear people complaining on the radio for once.” Grabbing a can from the sack, the Californian removed what appeared to be an engineered can opener from a pocket. The clatter of the metal top hitting the ground. “So, big boys, what can I do you for? They don’t bring special air-drops for nothin’, I can tell ya that.”

The men glanced at each other, their smiles melting into sheepish resignation. The blond nodded sharply and extended a hand as though offering a handshake. “We’re looking for a Paninya LeCoulte.”

The refugees reacted in an instant. Handguns apparated from nowhere; clubs and crowbars swung menacingly. The woman in the middle jiggled the cigarette thoughtfully. “Wha’cha lookin’ for about her, exactly?”

“We’re looking to ask her a few questions about her automail,” answered the other soldier, touching the brim of the hat resting on a vibrant shock of red hair. “If, perhaps, the government could use it to benefit the nation as a whole, and perhaps the world.”

The blond man grinned. The cigarette woman regarded him for a strained moment whilst the helicopter blades continued to beat sluggishly behind them. The fire sparked up once more only to die down to ash, and the woman with the makeshift can opener, the sole refugee not brandishing a weapon, swore under her breath. “Right.” She stood, stretched, and tapped her knees together. Clang. Her knees _clanged_. “Name’s Paninya LeCoulte. What do you boys need?”

Her right eye twitching, the cigarette woman glared at the mechanic. “Miss LeCoul—”

She threw up an arm. “Boys?”

The blond proffered his hand; she gripped, shaking firmly, and the pain evident in the strained, contorted features of his face and the faint shake of his shoulders caused the refugees to erupt in laughter. “M-major Jean Havoc. This is Captain Heymans Breda.”

“I don’t need your names. I need the info _to_ go. Chop-chop. Lay it on me.”

Havoc grinned, thumbing at the helicopter. “Mind seatin’ yourself, then? The chief’d like to talk to you. If no, then no. You’re not bein’ kidnapped or anything.”

“If I’m not _bein’_ kidnapped, why can’t that chief of yours come talk to me, eh?” Paninya cocked a hip, and the cigarette woman responded with a noise of agreement. “Just go ‘head and send that chief over to me, and we can sort all this out, eh?”

Havoc and Breda shook their heads at the same time, the former’s just a tad more urgent than the latter. “Policy. You’ve got to come with us.”

Paninya rolled her weight from one foot to another. “And you’re promising that I’ll come back in one piece if I want to?”

“Yes, ma’am.” Havoc saluted.

A long pause. “Oi, buzz me if you need me, a’ight? I’ll get the newest update to the knee model uploaded by tonight Pacific time, and don’t forget daily maintenance. And tell Klaus not to forget her daily maintenance either.” Murmurs of assent amongst the refugees. Several hugged her, bumped her fist, whispered something in her ear that made her snicker. When she’d finished her good-byes, Paninya dusted off her baggy camo-patterned cargo pants and picked a route around the curve of the fire pit. Taller than Breda, she looked up at the older soldier, smirking. “Fly me to the moon, sir.”

“Can do, ma’am.”

As the helicopter lifted into the air, the Californians lowered their weapons. The cigarette woman withdrew a slightly cracked smartphone and held it to the sky. The half-curve of her lips drooped the tip of the cigarette: On the screen bleeped a rapidly moving green dot over a map of the surrounding area. “Clever-ass girl,” she said, pride colouring her timbre. “If they don’t give her back, we’ll simply have to take her.”

 

Energy blazed, electricity running white-hot in the coils of Runner Inferno’s right arm. As the jäger stormed the waves towards the spade-headed kaiju, it swung its arm forward, discharging three bolts of electricity into the closest target, the monster, and the blue-pulsing flesh caught flame. Great plumes of cobalt-tinted smoke escaped into the grey tempest overhead. Turning, the kaiju swept tonnes of water towards the waiting guardian of humanity; roaring, the monster threw its indescribable mass at the jäger only for the beast to impale itself upon the jäger’s electrified blade.

The kaiju screamed, and abruptly the footage blurred and went dark.

Below the viewing screen, at a simple table upon which waited two cups of steaming coffee, primly sat an impassive woman with short blonde hair and birds’-wing bangs swept to her left. Havoc gestured towards the other chair. Wrenching her arm from Breda’s grasp on her other side, Paninya pushed the chair out and flopped down in it; solely the height of the table prevented her from propping her feet up on it. “So. Gen’ral Hawkeye. They told me I’ve be talkin’ to you. How can I help Your Majesty?”

Hawkeye leaned forward, elbows on the table, and weighed Paninya’s gaze against her own. “I’d like to talk to you,” she rumbled soberly, “about the Avengers Initiative.”

For a minute Paninya replied with a deadpan expression. Then she laughed, smacking the back of her head against the chair and her knee against the table. “Well, shit, Mr Fury, you want to hire me as a consultant or something?”

Chuckling politely, the general smiled, but not quite with her eyes. She jerked her head towards an unseen point behind her. “But on a somewhat serious note, have you considered ever working on the jägers again?”

“Yeah, actually, I have.” Paninya rubbed her head. Folding up the fabric of her pants, she probed her automail for dents, or worse. “And the answer is no, no, fuck no, no, never again, ha ha hell no, fuck no, and let’s see . . .” She tapped her chin contemplatively. “Oh, right, there was one more: _On my dead body fuck no_.”

General Hawkeye nodded carefully. Hooking an index finger around the handle of her cup, she took a lengthy sip of coffee, yet Paninya merely settled back in the silence as though wrapping it about herself to form a shield. “What if I told you,” the general said levelly, her façade wrought of ice and steel, “that you could save a certain former friend of yours?”

“A former friend? Like you know my damn friends.” Crossing her arms, Paninya scuffed a boot on the floor. The action left a semicircle of grime on the other polished tile. “One sec, lemme consult my manager.” She glanced up at the ceiling, then back at Hawkeye, and shrugged. “Yeah, sorry, manager says _no_ , says _get the fuck back to helping the kids that the great yu-ess of aey won’t_ , says _Paninya’ll never, ever turn her back on people who need and the fuckers who don’t get that can just fuck right off_.”

The general replaced her cup on the table. “Are you done?”

“Fuckin’ born done. One hundred _percent_ done.”

“Now.” A strange spark blazed in Hawkeye’s eyes, melting a hint of the front, and for once Paninya’s arrogant smirk faltered. “What if I told you that said friend’s name was Winry Rockbell?”

She heard something drop to the floor and shatter. When she bent down to see what had broken, she found her ability to resist in a thousand smote shards framing a portrait of the woman who had saved her life. The general’s coffee cup soared across the room and followed suited as Paninya grabbed the collar of Hawkeye’s uniform and forced the woman to stand. The tendons in her arm ached; her muscles bulged visibly under the warped fabric of her sleeve. Between clenched teeth Paninya hissed out a moist breath: “ _What did you fuckers_ do _to her?_ ”

“On the contrary.” Hawkeye did not move, let alone flinch. “Not _we_ fuckers. _We_ fuckers are the ones trying to rescue her.”

The fingers of her unoccupied hand collapsed into a fist born of anger and grief. “Yeah? And who the _fuck_ thought to take _my_ girl?”

“Miles Armstrong.” Paninya blinked. Hawkeye exhaled. “The Chief of Security of Russia.”

“Oh. Russian sons of bitches. So how the hell am I supposed to help with that? Spike their vodka?”

“That is precisely,” the general answered, and Paninya felt a ring of hard cold press into the small of her back at the curve of her spine, “why we need you. Tell me, how familiar are you with the Fullmetal Wildcat and the Runner Inferno? Because if not, you’re about to become quite acquainted.”

Despite the barrel of the gun shooting sparks of agony into her spinal cord, Paninya squinted. “Ain’t repairin’ those shits illegal?”

“Technically, America received permission to repair the Wildcat for celebratory use.” The general’s smirked. “And technically, Winry’s life is on the line. What do you say, Miss LeCoulte?”

Without hesitation, Paninya clapped Hawkeye on the shoulder with the hand formerly squeezed into a fist. “If it can get my girl back—” She released the general’s collar; Hawkeye adjusted the crisp fabric. “—then consider me so far on board I might as well the cap’n.”


End file.
